Our team's achievements

Menu

Prestigious commendation for City Renewal team member

8 July 2019

City Renewal Authority architect and project manager Bronwen Jones has received a commendation award with team members Gweneth Leigh and Aarthi Ayyar-Biddle as part of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects Remaking Lost Connections Ideas Competition.

The commendation was awarded out of 15 quality entries from cross-disciplinary teams across Australia. The Remaking Lost Connections Ideas competition explored the issues of climate change through remaking ‘lost connections’ in Canberra’s cultural, natural and built environments.

Entrants were encouraged to imaginatively retell the Canberra story. Bronwen’s team entry, titled “Critters to the Lake”, was about mending the ecological connections and cultural understanding of the riparian habitat (the zone between land and water) along a section of the lake edge where Parkes Way and Lady Denman Drive have severed the movement corridors for fauna from Black Mountain Reserve. Their entry looked to repair the connection by removing Lady Denman Drive, increase the tree canopy, provide wildlife bridges and restore the environment between land and water.

As former colleagues, the team’s idea came from a shared concern for the well-being of natural systems. Bringing together expertise from landscape architecture, photography, and city making, the competition was an opportunity for the team to get together again, drink lots of tea and work creatively with some of the critical issues facing the planet.

As a member of the City Renewal Authority team, Bronwen believes the agency has a responsibility to be an energetic advocate for good design that is able to deepen people’s understanding about how we co-exist on this planet with others. Charged with reshaping the city centre, it’s the Authority’s role to ensure that great spaces are realigned in a liveable and sustainable way that nurtures social connectedness.